Installation View Double, Double Toil and Trouble! ENGAGE Projects March 22 - April 27, 2024
All Photos: Jonas Mueller-Ahlheim
All Photos: Jonas Mueller-Ahlheim
“I want my work to reflect the ambiguity of the every day; thus redemptive and wickedly subversive, gorgeous and undone—something to be celebrated and subject to suspicion as a marginalized site. All at the same time! In many ways, I am a painter of Folly!”
—Phyllis Bramson
“Humor is part of my life. It is how my family communicated when I was growing up. Humor was used to cut through the seriousness of life. I use humor in my artwork as a tool to make touchy subject matters more palatable. With humor, there is no subject matter that cannot be discussed.”
—David Leggett
ENGAGE Projects is excited to announce our upcoming exhibition, “Double, Double Toil and Trouble” by David Leggett and Phyllis Bramson. The titular incantation derives from Shakespeare’s Macbeth, in which three witches cast a spell on Macbeth over a boiling cauldron, vexing his plans to ruin. Recontextualizing the phrase in this blended exhibition, Bramson and Leggett use elements of collage, comedic relief, and a maximalist style of painting to contribute to contemporary movements of feminist iconography, pop cultural commentary, and the fight against racial injustice. Both borrowing from the dominant cultural aesthetics of their time, the pair’s disparate backgrounds and life experiences coalesce in the taboo, daring to call attention to what others might simply sweep under the rug.
Crowdsourcing much of his imagery and text from online communities, 80s and 90s pop culture, and even commentary on his own work, David Leggett recycles media familiar to the masses, using painting as a platform for comedic relief amidst the sometimes grating realities of the day-to-day. His compositions include an array of motifs, including witches and cartoons like Bootleg Bart and Fat Albert, often trading the traditional canvas ratios for squares and circular panels that pull at the nostalgia for vinyl album covers and compact discs. Giving gravity to the small laughs that get us through the day, Leggett says, “I take many of my cues from standup comedians, which I listen to while in my studio. Humor and the use of color are two tools that I employ to bring the viewer in for closer examination.” Leggett’s hyper-modern collage aesthetic and traditional use of allegorical symbolism merge to address recurring themes of hip-hop, art history, sexuality, the racial divide, and the self.
A self-described “painter-comedian,” Bramson’s palette is a colorful array of beauty, humor, love, and lust. Bramson is a Rococo artist of the present day with an acute awareness for painting’s long history of male-gaze media. Engaging with imagery that depicts women as objects of affection rather than humans of individual agency, Bramson flips this narrative on its head by centering women’s empowerment and pleasure with her erotic anecdotes. The female figure is often enlarged in Bramson’s compositions, with male characters depicted in supporting or subservient roles such as holding the subject’s skirt. Her paintings carry an air of consciousness for proper decorum while at the same time contesting these traditions of etiquette and prescribed gender roles. She says, “In the studio I don’t practice good behavior. I maim; I raid; I give myself freedom.” It is this self-emancipatory action that characterizes her practice, connecting deeply with a feminist audience.
Crowdsourcing much of his imagery and text from online communities, 80s and 90s pop culture, and even commentary on his own work, David Leggett recycles media familiar to the masses, using painting as a platform for comedic relief amidst the sometimes grating realities of the day-to-day. His compositions include an array of motifs, including witches and cartoons like Bootleg Bart and Fat Albert, often trading the traditional canvas ratios for squares and circular panels that pull at the nostalgia for vinyl album covers and compact discs. Giving gravity to the small laughs that get us through the day, Leggett says, “I take many of my cues from standup comedians, which I listen to while in my studio. Humor and the use of color are two tools that I employ to bring the viewer in for closer examination.” Leggett’s hyper-modern collage aesthetic and traditional use of allegorical symbolism merge to address recurring themes of hip-hop, art history, sexuality, the racial divide, and the self.
A self-described “painter-comedian,” Bramson’s palette is a colorful array of beauty, humor, love, and lust. Bramson is a Rococo artist of the present day with an acute awareness for painting’s long history of male-gaze media. Engaging with imagery that depicts women as objects of affection rather than humans of individual agency, Bramson flips this narrative on its head by centering women’s empowerment and pleasure with her erotic anecdotes. The female figure is often enlarged in Bramson’s compositions, with male characters depicted in supporting or subservient roles such as holding the subject’s skirt. Her paintings carry an air of consciousness for proper decorum while at the same time contesting these traditions of etiquette and prescribed gender roles. She says, “In the studio I don’t practice good behavior. I maim; I raid; I give myself freedom.” It is this self-emancipatory action that characterizes her practice, connecting deeply with a feminist audience.
|
|
|
Phyllis Bramson, Basic Truths about Romantic Conditions, 2023
mixed media, collage, and paint on paper, mounted on panel 48 x 36 in 121.9 x 91.4 cm |
David Leggett, High vibration plates only., 2024
acrylic, collage, and felt on canvas 28 x 22 in 71.1 x 55.9 cm |
David Leggett
Swamp boogie woogie. Take my keys, 2024 acrylic, collage, and felt on canvas 14 x 11 in 35.6 x 27.9 cm David Leggett We tell these stories at night to sleep better. My bed is too hard tho., 2024 acrylic, collage, and felt on canvas 14 x 11 in 35.6 x 27.9 cm |
David Leggett
I broke my shoelace., 2023 acrylic, collage, and felt on canvas 14 x 11 in 35.6 x 27.9 cm David Leggett I’m not here to make friends., 2024 acrylic, collage, and felt on canvas 14 x 11 in 35.6 x 27.9 cm |
David Leggett
Everybody can’t go., 2024
acrylic and collage on panel
24 x 60 in
61 x 152.4 cm
Everybody can’t go., 2024
acrylic and collage on panel
24 x 60 in
61 x 152.4 cm
David Leggett
I wasn’t invited, but I’m going anyway., 2024 acrylic, felt, collage, and spray paint on canvas 28 x 22 in 71.1 x 55.9 cm |
David Leggett
We recycle in this house., 2024 acrylic, collage, photo, and felt on canvas 28 x 22 in 71.1 x 55.9 cm |
David Leggett
There are no real winners., 2024 acrylic, collage, photo, spray paint, and felt on canvas 28 x 22 in 71.1 x 55.9 cm |
David Leggett
Blue magic period., 2024 acrylic, collage, and spray paint on canvas 28 x 22 in 71.1 x 55.9 cm |
David Leggett
We used to be a country., 2024
acrylic, felt, and collage on canvas
40 x 40 in
101.6 x 101.6 cm
We used to be a country., 2024
acrylic, felt, and collage on canvas
40 x 40 in
101.6 x 101.6 cm
Phyllis Bramson
Li'l Red on Her Way to Grandma's House (The Moon is an Illusion of Human Darkness), 2023
mixed media and collage on canvas
70 x 60 in
177.8 x 152.4 cm
Li'l Red on Her Way to Grandma's House (The Moon is an Illusion of Human Darkness), 2023
mixed media and collage on canvas
70 x 60 in
177.8 x 152.4 cm
Phyllis Bramson
Rapunzel's Hairdresser Flew In On a Crow, 2019
mixed media and collage on canvas
36 x 36 in
91.4 x 91.4 cm
Rapunzel's Hairdresser Flew In On a Crow, 2019
mixed media and collage on canvas
36 x 36 in
91.4 x 91.4 cm
Phyllis Bramson
Mary Mary Is Quite Contrary, How Does Your Garden Grow?, 2024
mixed media and collage on canvas
60 x 50 in
152.4 x 127 cm
Mary Mary Is Quite Contrary, How Does Your Garden Grow?, 2024
mixed media and collage on canvas
60 x 50 in
152.4 x 127 cm
Phyllis Bramson
Rapunzel's Escape to the Garden, 2022 mixed media, collage, and paint on paper, mounted to panel 48 x 36 in 121.9 x 91.4 cm |
Phyllis Bramson
Spring Brings Love, But Like Snowfall, Slowly, Slowly, 2024 mixed media and collage on paper mounted to panel 48 x 36 in 121.9 x 91.4 cm |
|
Phyllis Bramson
Abstract Spidey, 2013 mixed media and collage on canvas 36 x 36 in 91.4 x 91.4 cm |
Phyllis Bramson
Happiness (for Sabina), 2018 mixed media on canvas 36 x 36 in 91.4 x 91.4 cm |
